# People who abbreviate their first name… **URL:** \ **Category:** In My Humble Opinion\ **Created:** [April 22, 2022, 9:17pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/people-who-abbreviate-their-first-name/963281 "2022-04-22T21:17:52Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 4
**Author:** ![mbh](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/a6a055/32.png) [@mbh](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/mbh)\ **Post date:** [April 24, 2022, 3:37pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/people-who-abbreviate-their-first-name/963281/61 "2022-04-24T15:37:12Z")
> [@commasense](#): > > As a teenager I was once given some shit by a bureaucrat who insisted that I spell out the whole name on a form. I said, “But that’s not my signature!” Didn’t matter. I wonder how he deals with doctors? ---
**Author:** ![mmmiiikkkeee](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/edb3f5/32.png) [@mmmiiikkkeee](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/mmmiiikkkeee)\ **Post date:** [April 24, 2022, 4:04pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/people-who-abbreviate-their-first-name/963281/62 "2022-04-24T16:04:20Z")
It could be, but I don’t know whether that version is used where everyone also speaks french. In this guy’s case he specifically took the time to explain to our class why he went by that amongst his teaching colleagues; which was a little unusual a topic for teachers to discus their first names with students. The explanation came during a talk about the difference in pronunciation between the two languages, and he used another example of how he chose his son’s name (who had just been born in Alberta but whos parents were both Quebecois). He wanted to use the name Eugene, which (according to him) is a rather nice name in french culture and of course is pronounced differently than an english speaker would. In typical english pronunciation it comes across as a nerdy sounding “U-geen”. So he decided against using it for that reason. ---
**Author:** ![hajario](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/hajario/32/171_2.png) [@hajario](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/hajario)\ **Post date:** [April 24, 2022, 4:11pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/people-who-abbreviate-their-first-name/963281/63 "2022-04-24T16:11:09Z")
> [@Thudlow\_Boink](#): > > I’ve never understood the custom of giving the same name to multiple different people in the same family. Doesn’t it kind of defeat the purpose of names if everyone has the same one? I knew a father and son who were a X and a XI. XI had a new baby at the time who was XII. The original person with the name was some sort of hero in the Revolutionary War. I guess no one wanted to break the chain. The first name was Alexander and they went by Al, Alex and Alec. ---
**Author:** ![E-DUB](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/e-dub/32/403_2.png) [@E-DUB](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/E-DUB)\ **Post date:** [April 24, 2022, 4:22pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/people-who-abbreviate-their-first-name/963281/64 "2022-04-24T16:22:48Z")
Well, if I knew T. Boone Pickens I would call him "T-Bone: for laughs or maybe “Slim”. ---
**Author:** ![mbh](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/a6a055/32.png) [@mbh](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/mbh)\ **Post date:** [April 24, 2022, 6:08pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/people-who-abbreviate-their-first-name/963281/65 "2022-04-24T18:08:03Z")
> [@hajario](#): > > I knew a father and son who were a X and a XI. XI had a new baby at the time who was XII. The original person with the name was some sort of hero in the Revolutionary War. I guess no one wanted to break the chain. Still not as weird as the [Princes of Reuss](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Imperial_County_of_Reuss). ---
**Author:** ![tomndebb](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/b9e5f3/32.png) [@tomndebb](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/tomndebb)\ **Post date:** [April 25, 2022, 9:18pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/people-who-abbreviate-their-first-name/963281/66 "2022-04-25T21:18:40Z")
I had two classmates who went by [initial middlename]. In each case, their first name was the same as that of their father and substituting the initial for the name meant that they were not confused by others. And then there is my Mom. Her family used a similar logic to prevent her being confused with her great aunt with whom shared a first name. Ironically (to me) her aunt was so far back in time and separated by some distance that I had a hard time seeing any actual confusion, but she wound up being known by her middle name throughout her 96 years, (even by Dad). ---
**Author:** ![Daithi\_Lacha](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/daithi_lacha/32/5430_2.png) [@Daithi\_Lacha](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Daithi_Lacha)\ **Post date:** [May 19, 2022, 2:32pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/people-who-abbreviate-their-first-name/963281/67 "2022-05-19T14:32:27Z")
My grandad was Bernard and my dad was Bernard Trevor. Everyone in my small town called grandpa “Bernie” and they called his son Trevor or just “Trev.” I guess one Bernie was enough in the village. When dad signed his name, he usually used “B. Trevor K—”. ---
**Author:** ![ZonexandScout](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/zonexandscout/32/544_2.png) [@ZonexandScout](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ZonexandScout)\ **Post date:** [May 19, 2022, 8:07pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/people-who-abbreviate-their-first-name/963281/68 "2022-05-19T20:07:34Z")
My dog’s name is J. Jasper Jax. I’ll ask him about it. On a somewhat related topic, my brother-in-law goes by “Eddy,” even though neither his first nor middle names is Edward. But the initials are “E. D.,” so…you know. Same way with his father. ---
**Author:** ![Northern\_Piper](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/northern_piper/32/5304_2.png) [@Northern\_Piper](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Northern_Piper)\ **Post date:** [May 20, 2022, 1:56am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/people-who-abbreviate-their-first-name/963281/70 "2022-05-20T01:56:04Z")
I don’t use my first name. Just a family thing. My father always went by his middle name, and my mother went by her third name. None of us used an initial for the unused names. I had to struggle with the local law society, which insisted on listing me with my first name initial, then my second name, but they finally dropped the initial. ---
**Author:** ![aurora\_maire](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/aurora_maire/32/328_2.png) [@aurora\_maire](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/aurora_maire)\ **Post date:** [May 20, 2022, 3:57am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/people-who-abbreviate-their-first-name/963281/71 "2022-05-20T03:57:12Z")
> [@Thudlow\_Boink](#): > > I’ve never understood the custom of giving the same name to multiple different people in the same family. Doesn’t it kind of defeat the purpose of names if everyone has the same one? Working on my mother’s family history is a nightmare. Almost every family in every generation named two of their sons James and William, so several cousins would have the same names. They would often have different middle names but then skip a generation or two and use those middle names again. William finally died out with her parent’s generation and James with hers. ---
**Author:** ![Spoons](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/spoons/32/3141_2.png) [@Spoons](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Spoons)\ **Post date:** [May 20, 2022, 8:13am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/people-who-abbreviate-their-first-name/963281/72 "2022-05-20T08:13:44Z")
> [@Northern\_Piper](#): > > I had to struggle with the local law society, which insisted on listing me with my first name initial, then my second name, but they finally dropped the initial. I’m known by my first name–actually, a shortening of it–in local courts and among colleagues, though I use it in full on my business cards. Still, the local law society wants to know me by my first, middle, and last names. I hate my middle name; I only reluctantly gave it to them. My signature has not used my first name in about 45 years. When I sign my name, it is simply “DSpoons,” without even a period. The D and the S are recognizable; the rest is a mountain landscape of peaks and valleys. (My last name is actually not “Spoons,” but you should get the idea.) ---
**Author:** ![lobotomyboy63](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/lobotomyboy63/32/2900_2.png) [@lobotomyboy63](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/lobotomyboy63)\ **Post date:** [May 20, 2022, 10:20am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/people-who-abbreviate-their-first-name/963281/73 "2022-05-20T10:20:01Z")
> Weinberger explained in 2000 that he began using the abbreviation “Ed.” when he was eight years old, admitting that “it’s an affectation that’s gotten out of hand.”[[1]](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ed._Weinberger#cite_note-Variety-1) > **[Ed. Weinberger](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ed._Weinberger)** > > Edwin B. "Ed." Weinberger is an American screenwriter and television producer. > Born in 1938 and raised in Philadelphia, the only son of Jewish butcher Leon and his wife Helen Weinberger, Ed. Weinberger began his TV career after he dropped out of Columbia University, writing for such stand-up comedians as Dick Gregory, Richard Pryor, and Bill Cosby. His first job in television was writing for The Tonight Show Starring Johnny Carson. He also wrote for The Bob Hope Special, The Bill Cosby Show, a... ---
**Author:** ![Mallard](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/b9bd4f/32.png) [@Mallard](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mallard)\ **Post date:** [May 20, 2022, 11:38am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/people-who-abbreviate-their-first-name/963281/74 "2022-05-20T11:38:17Z")
> [@commasense](#): > > My first name is James, and I have always signed it as Jas. I’m called James (or Jim by people who don’t know me well). > > As a teenager I was once given some shit by a bureaucrat who insisted that I spell out the whole name on a form. I said, “But that’s not my signature!” Didn’t matter. > > But that’s the only time in more than 50 years that anyone’s questioned it. I’ve had some comments and had to explain a few times that it’s an old-fashioned abbreviation. Usually people thinks it’s cool. Interesting about signing “Jas” for James. When doing some family history research I found a census form from the 1800s signed by my great grandfather also a “James” and he also signed James as “Jas”. ---
**Author:** ![doreen](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/858c86/32.png) [@doreen](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/doreen)\ **Post date:** [May 20, 2022, 11:42am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/people-who-abbreviate-their-first-name/963281/75 "2022-05-20T11:42:38Z")
I’m not sure what you mean when you distinguish between “middle names” and “additional given names” .Are you talking about multiple word first names, which are common for some names/in some countries, like “Anne Marie” who is never just “Anne” or “Jean-Pierre” (never just “Jean”) or something different ? ---
**Author:** ![Northern\_Piper](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/northern_piper/32/5304_2.png) [@Northern\_Piper](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Northern_Piper)\ **Post date:** [May 20, 2022, 1:14pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/people-who-abbreviate-their-first-name/963281/76 "2022-05-20T13:14:35Z")
> [@Mallard](#): > > Interesting about signing “Jas” for James. When doing some family history research I found a census form from the 1800s signed by my great grandfather also a “James” and he also signed James as “Jas”. It was common to abbreviate given names that way. “Thomas” was often “Thos” and “Charles” could be signed “Chas”. ---
**Author:** ![Dr.Drake](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/ad7895/32.png) [@Dr.Drake](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dr.Drake)\ **Post date:** [May 20, 2022, 4:40pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/people-who-abbreviate-their-first-name/963281/77 "2022-05-20T16:40:20Z")
I went and legally changed my name because, especially following 9/11, officialdom insisted that I use Firstname M. Lastname and no other permutation thereof. Though I am called “Middlename,” I was always content to use the full name (Firstname Middlename Lastname), but banks and medical bureaucrats insisted that I had to use my full legal name: I couldn’t shorten it to as F. Middlename Lastname or Middlename Lastname. When I protested that that meant they couldn’t shorten it to Firstname M. Lastname either, they kept saying that that was my full legal name, all evidence to the contrary. So I guess I’m asking how these people are all getting away with F. Middlename Lastname, because it never worked for me. ---
**Author:** ![doreen](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/858c86/32.png) [@doreen](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/doreen)\ **Post date:** [May 20, 2022, 4:55pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/people-who-abbreviate-their-first-name/963281/78 "2022-05-20T16:55:41Z")
Depends on what you mean by “getting away with it.” Other people won’t always know what someone’s name s “officially”. I worked for a large, bureaucratic state agency, and payroll and pension records are available online. There were two people I knew of who sort of went by “F. Middlename Lastname” - by sort of, I mean that was the display name on their email address, and entries in our electronic records would refer to them by that. But only one of them was in the payroll/pension system that way - the other was in there as Firstname Lastname. I assume the one getting a pension as F. Middlename Lastname must have somehow legally changed her name to that - because the way my agency worked, I’m surprised they allowed the other one to be F. Middlename for any purpose. ---
**Author:** ![Mops](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/mops/32/16494_2.png) [@Mops](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mops)\ **Post date:** [May 20, 2022, 8:13pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/people-who-abbreviate-their-first-name/963281/79 "2022-05-20T20:13:22Z")
> [@doreen](#): > > I’m not sure what you mean when you distinguish between “middle names” and “additional given names” .Are you talking about multiple word first names, which are common for some names/in some countries, like “Anne Marie” who is never just “Anne” or “Jean-Pierre” (never just “Jean”) or something different ? The features of a ‘middle name’ as I understand them are: - everyone is supposed to have one; in forms it often goes into a separate field, as opposed to a given name field that can contain multiple given names - the middle name can be something that is not a possible given name (e.g. with Harry S Truman and Robert Strange McNamara) ---
**Author:** ![doreen](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/858c86/32.png) [@doreen](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/doreen)\ **Post date:** [May 20, 2022, 9:21pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/people-who-abbreviate-their-first-name/963281/80 "2022-05-20T21:21:41Z")
I’m not sure there is anyplace (including the US) where everyone is supposed to have a middle name - and there are certainly other places where people do have middle names, depending on exactly how you define “middle name” . It’s not simply the name in the middle, there is almost an implication that the middle name is not commonly used - “Mary Beth” who is always called Mary Beth has a compound first name , but “Elizabeth Marie” who is always called Elizabeth probably has a first name and a middle name. ---
**Author:** ![commasense](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/commasense/32/3017_2.png) [@commasense](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/commasense)\ **Post date:** [May 21, 2022, 12:39pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/people-who-abbreviate-their-first-name/963281/81 "2022-05-21T12:39:44Z")
In Britain it is apparently not uncommon (or at least wasn’t in certain periods) for men to have two, three, or more middle names, perhaps following the lead of royal families. E.g., Charles Philip Arthur George, the Prince of Wales. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/people-who-abbreviate-their-first-name/963281.md?page=3) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/people-who-abbreviate-their-first-name/963281.md?page=5)